At long last, the decrepit Delk Road Kroger is being put out to pasture. According to a Kroger employee at the store, the brand-new Kroger (1310 Powers Ferry Road) is expected to open August 2, while the existing circa 1982 Kroger (1122 Powers Ferry Road) is slated to close "around the same time".
It's unclear what had more recently delayed the store, but March came and went as did the subsequently projected April and May openings. We visited the store in May and found it built and nearly finished save for merchandise and employees. A subsequent visit this week revealed the onsite 18 pump Kroger fuel center has opened (unleaded was $3.13 as of June 13) with hiring still ongoing for the actual store.
The new Kroger measures nearly 91,000 square feet, down from an originally planned 113,000 square feet, but still more than double the current Delk Kroger which measures about 45,000 square feet. At only 91,000 square feet, the new store will not carry the "Marketplace" branding, a designation typically reserved for stores in excess of 100,000 square feet such as those in Gainesville, Cumming, Carrollton and Savannah. The Terrell Mill store will be smaller than the large format Glenwood Place store near Grant Park but larger than the large format Kroger off Piedmont Road near the Lindbergh MARTA station. The new Terrell Mill Kroger will feature an in-store Starbucks.
Kroger received $35 million in tax abatements from the Development Authority of Cobb County, but only after a legal challenge threatened the bond issuance and Kroger threatened to abandon the project. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the issuing of the bonds in 2019.
According to Cobb County property records, Habersham Partners LLC purchased the current roughly 4.8 acre Kroger property in November 2019 for $5.5 million. East Cobb News reported this past March that WC Acquisitions LLC filed plans with the City of Marietta to build more than 300 apartments and 6,000 square feet of retail space on the old Kroger property.
Marketplace Terrell Mill was a joint venture between Atlanta commercial real estate developers JR Connolly of Connolly Investments and Brandon Ashkouti of Eden Rock Real Estate Partners.
The 23 acres at the southwest intersection of Powers Ferry Road and Terrell Mill Road was previously home to Brumby Elementary School, among other things, and was rezoned for the mixed-use project in 2018. In addition to the 289 unit Marketplace Village apartment building, the $120 million MarketPlace Terrell Mill development also includes an all-important Extra Space Storage (AKA the new Mattress Firm of shopping centers) as well as other retail and restaurant space.
Among the other tenants in the center are Regions Bank, Lush Nail Salon, and Ideal Dental as well as Chick-fil-A, Panera, Wendy’s and Los Abuelos Mexican Grill. A new outpost of "craft beer bar" The Brass Tap is also slated to open in the center in early August.
ToNeTo Atlanta has in recent years reported on more than two dozen new grocery stores opening in metro Atlanta, most of which were either Publix or Lidl. Publix has already opened more than a half dozen new stores in metro Atlanta in just the past year while Lidl has pushed several planned openings to 2024.
For its part, Kroger has been particularly quiet - closing stores in Brookhaven (2020) and Decatur & Buckhead (2022) - while pushing back or calling off other stores. The company did in 2020 finally reopen their rebuilt Embry Hills store. A previously planned Kroger planned for the corner of 17th Street and Northside Drive behind IKEA was abandoned with the grocer selling its property to multifamily developer Southeastern that recently broke ground on their planned development, "UrbA ATL." ToNeTo Atlantareported in March that a Kroger in Lawrenceville that was thought to have been delayed indefinitely is indeed moving forward.
Are you pleased to see Kroger opening their new store? What would you like to see get built at the existing Kroger site? What traditional grocer do you shop at most frequently?
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